Police have arrested a 16-year-old for the murder of ABC NEWS RADIO anchor GEORGE WEBER after the teenager confessed early this morning.
The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS reports that its source told it the teen, JOHN KATEHIS, said that he had responded to WEBER's CRAIGSLIST ad looking for "violent sex" and killed WEBER when the session "got out of hand," claiming to have "blanked out."
According to the source, police found the suspect by looking at WEBER's e-mail, browser history and cell phone calls.
The suspect is being held at the 76th Precinct in BROOKLYN.
The teenager, John Katehis, of East Elmhurst, Queens, did not enter a plea or make any statement during the arraignment before Judge John H. Wilson of Brooklyn Criminal Court.
Mr. Katehis was arrested on Tuesday night outside a bus depot in Middletown, N.Y., in Orange County. “He subsequently made statements implicating himself in the stabbing death,” said Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the New York Police Department.
Mr. Weber, 47, who recently had been working as a freelance anchor for ABC News Radio, the national network, was found in his apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, on Sunday. He had been stabbed about 50 times, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said.
Herb Moses, the public defender representing Mr. Katehis, told Judge Wilson that it was a “very tragic situation.” He added that he thought his client had been “used by an older gentleman” and that he expected more details to emerge about Mr. Katehis’s encounter with Mr. Weber.
Officials said the teenager apparently answered a Craigslist ad in which Mr. Weber, 47, sought a sexual partner. The police believed Mr. Weber planned to pay Mr. Katehis for sex. The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said that the two had arranged to meet on Wednesday, March 18, but rescheduled the meeting for Friday evening.
A neighbor saw someone, believed by the police to be Mr. Katehis, speaking on a cellphone outside Mr. Weber’s building on Henry Street. Mr. Weber may have allowed him to enter the apartment about 6 p.m., and while he was inside, the suspect stabbed him about 50 times, Mr. Kelly said. No weapon has been found, the police said.
The police would not say why they believed the teenager stabbed Mr. Weber. He had no criminal record. No one at his home Wednesday would comment on the case.
At 9:13 p.m. Friday, a conductor on a northbound G train saw a passenger bleeding profusely from his left hand, Mr. Kelly said. The passenger, who Mr. Kelly said was Mr. Katehis, was met by Emergency Medical Services workers at station and taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was treated and released, Mr. Kelly said. He told the police that he had cut his hand on a bottle. Judge Wilson ordered Wednesday that Mr. Katehis continue to receive medical attention for the cut.
An autopsy on Mr. Weber was performed on Monday, and the police said he had been stabbed in the head and neck, the front and rear of his torso, and the arms and hands. Mr. Katehis had changed his bloody clothes after the attack and put on some of Mr. Weber’s, Mr. Kelly said.
The teenager then fled to Middletown to a friend’s house on Tuesday morning, Mr. Kelly said. Detectives tracked him down through a search of Mr. Weber’s computer communications and from information they received from family members of Mr. Katehis’s, he said.
In Middletown on Tuesday, law enforcement officials said, Mr. Katehis’s father helped arrange for his son to go to the bus depot. As the boy approached a vehicle expecting to see his father, detectives got out and the boy fled across the street, where more detectives were waiting in an unmarked van. They tackled Mr. Katehis and handcuffed him.
Late Wednesday afternoon, several friends gathered at Angry Wade’s, a tavern where Mr. Weber had been a regular, to recall a man who often greeted them with a smile and who had a contagious laugh. He was somebody who loved to talk and debate, they said. They lighted candles, and had drinks sitting at the bar in front of an empty chair at his customary place.
There were handwritten messages on napkins on the bar surrounding a glass poured for him. “We’ll all miss you,” one said.
Outside the bar, John Peterman, 35, a coordinating producer for a television production company who lives across the street from Mr. Weber, said: “Friendships run deep in our neighborhood. And George was friends with many people.”
Mr. Katehis’s MySpace page, which was taken down Wednesday, said he enjoyed “drinking, bike riding, hanging out, roof hopping, hanging off trains,” and “extreme violence (chaos, anarchy, etc ...) video games, violent movies and listening to my iPod.”
“II am an extremist, an anarchist and a sadomasochist. As long as you show respect for me, I will show respect for you.”
But it warned that if he were not shown respect, he would “break your neck.”
It shows how this society is getting more pathetic by the minute. 
